. >> i'm sorry. we are having more technical difficulty. if we can just take three minutes and organize this. sorry about this. >> no problem. [off mic] >> let's see what an engineer can do. [laughter]

>> it's not a plug-in issue. okay, that's a relief.

[off mic]

>> apparently it's a signal from there. because we can show the whole room, but we just cannot show the powerpoint.

[off mic] >> it looks like we are back in business. i apologize, commissioners and members of the public for the delay. david please take the way. >> thank you elaine. commissioners,

president brandon i'm with real estate and development, here seeking authorization for the request to proposals for the south beach historic piers 38 and 40. a quick outline of the presentation i'll be going through this afternoon, including how this aligns with the strategic applan, a little bit about the background the development context the input we received, the minimum qualifications scoring criteria, collection panel, review and selection process and then the economic benefits to the port and next steps. so the rerelease and successful development to the piers 38 and 40 project will touch on five of the port's strategic objectives including productivity, stability, resilience engagement and equity. a little bit of background. the location of piers 38 and 40 is located in our

south beach subarea, centrally located between the mission bay and mission rock projects, adjacent to the central ssoma and rincon areas and a lot of great access to public transportation. the rehabilitation project of the piers is an outcome of the waterfront plan process and the port's resilience plan. it touches on three direct things from the waterfront plan, including the adaptive reuse of the piers addressing the public trust objectives and attracting a mix of publicly-oriented and revenue-generating uses. it helps the port and city achieve its goals from the resilience program, addressing seawall safety and flooding. and the process is the outcome of a lot of work that's been done to date, including the waterfront plan and the commission informational items as it relates to the historic piers program

presented in december, february and may. and then lastly the outreach that's been conducted since those dates. these slides should look familiar. a reminder this process is coming directly out of the waterfront plan. these are the nine portwide goals. falling under them are 161 policy recommendations. we feel a successful project will touch on each of these nine goals. again, the public trust objectives, an outcome of the waterfront land use plan, and those objectives at a high level are preserving the integrity of the historic district, investing in capital repairs seismic safety and sea level rise, providing maritime and public access uses, providing publicly-oriented uses within a mix of other uses generating revenue to support the investment and the port's needs and

matching a lease term that matches the investment within the piers. also coming out of the waterfront land use plan was the identification of acceptable land uses for each of the facilities. and within the pier 38 and 40 facilities are clustered into five different uses, including maritime uses, open space and public access, publicly-oriented uses commercial and industry uses and then a few other uses that fall into that category. this relates to the port's resilience program. it includes the port has three active programs relating to resilience. there's seawall program, flood study which you heard a little bit from brad about and historic piers program within the flood work we are also doing a flood-proofing study to help set criteria and standards and guidance as it relates to how we can flood-proof our piers for the various levels of sea

level rise and storm action. the rop provides criteria and guidance on seismic performance adapting to flood management and city flood protection. once we select a development partner, we'll be working with a contract management division to establish lbe goals throughout the phases of the project. we'll collaborate with cd to zyban design. the projects will need to comply with the local hirings. we'll do that once we've selected the development partner. as outlined in the waterfront plan, partnering for success goal, we did outreach to our advisory groups and neighborhood groups within the areas of pier 38 and identified values and priorities

for them that should be reflected in the rop. and we've organized those into two clusters, those that are common for the south beach and waterfront piers as we advance to those and specific ones to the south beach piers. to summarize the common ones, we want to look at the largest diversity and offering of uses that offer benefits to the greatest number and variety of users. we want equitable access for all. we want authenticity. we want to create a sense of place depending on the locations of the pier clusters and lastly balancing the objective of the rehabilitation of the piers with the objective of equitably serving the greatest number of users. and then the specific values and priorities for the south beach piers were enhancing the pier 40 recreational boating and excursion activities that occur out there today leverage the ballpark activities and

foot traffic, create an opportunity for new uses on pier 40 that maybe activate the embarcadero edge, enhance the use of the adjacent parks and opportunity to enhance and connect the piers 38 and 40 with the south beach towns and commercial corridor. for the development concept we think that a successful respondent will speak to these key areas outlined in the staff report in formulating their proposals. so essentially it's following what we came out of the waterfront plan plus the public trust objectives the port city's resilience, the acceptable land uses, the stakeholder values and priorities and economic benefit to the port will equal a great development concept for us. we've set minimum qualifications

to provide opportunity to the widest spectrum of the experienced developers with the projects of this scale and complexity but also wanted to make it available so that it wasn't just available to the largest developers in the area. so kind of a balance between folks that have experience doing large complex projects but also making it available to possibly smaller teams that might form into a larger team. for the scoring criteria, there will be a review of the written responses equating to 100 points and then an additional 30 points coming out of oral interviews. the 100 points relate to quality of the design, development submittal, the strength of the financial proposal the financial capacity of the respondent experience, organization and quality of the respondent team and up to an additional 30 points based on the

quality design development experience and team organization. and then for the port commission review and selection process first we'll bring those respondents that meet the minimum qualifications to the commission so that will be after we go through the process to make sure they've met those minimum qualifications outlined in the staff report. then we'll bring on a third party to do review of the financial feasibility the historic preservation approach and an engineering review for code and occupancy compliance to make sure the proposals can meet the necessary requirements for those projects. we'll bring that third party review to a scoring panel who will take that information and apply it to the scoring criteria in their written review. and then they'll interview the candidates. and then finally we'll tabulate the scores and bring a recommendation to the commission seeking

authorization to enter into an ena. and then lastly the economic benefits to the port, we recognize, and you may recall from the presentation in may that we know that this is going to be a difficult project that there could be a potential financial feasibility gap. but we are hoping that developers can bring an approach to the projects that maybe decrease costs and increase revenue, leverages the efficiency of two projects adjacent to one another and identify approaches to more potential use pier 40 the shed and the parking lot. and lastly the benefits are looking at significant investment and report assets, the reliable revenue stream, participation in upside revenue and private investment in the seawall. and with your approval today, we are aiming to release the rfp in mid-november, have them due in february, form the

scoring panel, bring up informational presentation to the port commission in april and then seek authorization at the second meeting in april to enter into an ena. with that i wanted to thank the team helping on this, mic martin, rebecca, michelle, sandler, peter. with that, we are available for questions. thank you. >> thank you. can i have a motion? >> i so move the item. >> i second. >> commissioner. >> sorry. is there any public comment on this item? come on up. >> i'm a native. >> speak into the microphone. >> i'm a neighbor that lives across the street from pier 40, 38 and i'm here to represent the neighborhood to make sure you know we are there. we live there. loud music bounces all of the water. buses double

park all the time. there's no place for ubers. these kinds of things really affect quality of life just in that area. and i'm just here to represent the neighborhood. >> and your name? >> diane omato. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> good afternoon president brandon commissioners, director forbes. i'm alice rogers president of the south bay neighborhood organization. i want to thank you for moving on this so quickly after the waterfront land use process. it has really informed the neighborhood. and we are very eager to see the developments happen to activate these piers and appreciate the approach where you were really looking to values and priorities as opposed to specific uses in these rfps, because it gave

us an opportunity to call out things like congestion the quality of life issues that diane just mentioned rather than talking about this use or that use. so if any rfp respondent can follow those values, they should be able to follow with a great development. thank you so much. >> thank you. any other public comment? seeing none, public comment is closed. commissioner makras. >> i have a few comments and maybe recommendations for changes to the package. for instance, when it comes back to the port for our review, and they are calling out a five-minute presentation, i would recommend the presentation allow the responders more than five minutes. it's going to be the public's first viewing of the proposal,

not just ours, but it would be the public's first viewing. and you are looking at a few hundred million dollar project. i think we are due a larger presentation. and if you want to say sales pitch from the developer to the commission and to the public. i would recommend they have, i guess it's called the blackout period and they have a whole list of those blocked out on page 12. so basically they are blocking out everybody. it sounds like elaine blocked out. the staff members assigned to it that can have access to it. unless there's a reason behind it, i would recommend they include the panel if they will be reviewing and scoring. >> they would be.

>> yeah. so i would add that in there. because we wouldn't want -- we know scoring takes more than one day or the reviewing would be more than one day. so presumably if they review two a day and there were ten bids the first team that went in there if they were not published and they would be public and we may have some advantages between one bidder or another. i'm interested just the rationalizeation of 100 plus 30 in the count versus all of the points just totaling 100 between the written and the oral. someone share the rationalization of how they came up with 100 points? i understand that but why separate is why is that not 100 and why is it 30? what's

the thought process with it? is there an imputed advantage we are looking at in the pointing system? because everyone's math equals is same at 100. but 130 skews some of the numbers. >> well, we thought the 100 from the written standpoint made sense just from a rounding and ease of identifying criteria for it. and then the reasons for the additional 30 points in the written we thought would allow -- may allow a team that didn't do as well in the written to go ahead based on their oral interview and it may also indicate to us that some that have met the minimum qualifications but scored very poorly may not even make it to the next level for an interview. if one team got -- there's five teams and he we got 90 95, 80 and a 40, it may help us

decide who gets into the next step. >> i think i'm following a little bit of that. but you are not telling us how many you are going to bring us. you are not saying they have to meet a certain mark. >> we are saying every proposal that meets the qualifications will come to the port commission. so that's why we limited the time to five minutes frankly because we didn't know if we would have 20 or -- that's a lot historically. so that's why we limited it to five minutes. but seah your point that's a short -- we see your point that that's a short amount of time. but that's the plan, that every proposer who meets the minimum qualifications will come to the port so you all have an opportunity to see the proposals that the panel will be evaluating. >> one final rationale is one of the things we thought about was because those public presentations are happening before

the scoring panel hears the interviews, we were a little concerned that a respondent might decide to strategically amend its proposal in the interview or do something based on what they hear at the public presentations that would -- we felt like the more emphasis should be on the written proposal, and then they would describe the 30 points for the written interview is allowing people to adjust but not change course and have another 100 points or another set of points they could get that could really change the ordering. so i think our focus is on the written because it has more detail, but we wanted to give room for people that could present well to sort of give us that. >> i'm not sure i concur with that rationalization but i'm accepting it as yours. >> i will say just because i've been around panels both in the professional services and in development contacts, there is a lot of debate about how to deal with written

and oral. some recommend that you have written is its own scoring and whomever advances oral is a whole new scoring and whomever wins the oral wins the day. that's one way in which it is handled. but many, the more typical way of doing so is putting more emphasis on the written, because obviously there's quite a bit of time and effort that goes into all of that documentation and explanation of what's being proposed. but to have a separate factor for oral because there are certainly things which can be communicated orally that don't come through in writing. and a team may have more expertise in communicating so they will perform better in that. so this is the most typical way in which city departments do evaluation more emphasis on written with a cumulative score adding in oral.

>> so are you saying that we are going to take the version that gets the highest score? >> yes. >> versus we can qualify three and then pick the best of the three? >> what we are recommending here is a process whereby panel does its evaluation, and we bring the panel's recommendation to the commission and you would affirm that panel recommendation. and we would enter into an ena with them. so we are recommending that the highest score from the panel process be awarded the right to an exclusive negotiation agreement. if the commission feels that for some reason they are not comfortable with the panel's recommendation or something, they are just not comfortable with the proposal or it's not a winning proposal, then we would like you to tell us to start again. >> why wouldn't we just bring the top winners there? because you can't get use out of

points. and we may prefer a particular use or blend of uses more than we would a person that just got the highest score that's shoving down the use to the commission and to the community. >> the way in we -- we designed this, the values are front and center in the scoring in terms of the trust values and what the community has expressed their interest in. so we believe that the way in which we designed this instrument for the panel to deploy will bring you the best proposal. >> but there's no weight in all of those uses. so there's no way that that can be quantified. we can have a person put four restaurants in there and have another person put two. we can have 30,000 square foot of maritime office versus 50,000 square foot of maritime office. we can have a boat

repair shop or no boat repair shop. i believe it would be in our interest to be able to decide which of those uses collectively with the qualified applicant would be the best selected person. i mean, this is going to have a lot of uses to it. i mean, for all intents and purposes, i'm not going to call it a shopping center. >> right. >> we put this together, it's not going to be a single use. >> so commissioner, i guess each respondent is going to come in with a mix of uses with this much space. a good proportion is going to be revenue-generating because of the feasibility challenges of this space. the panel will have the ability to look at the values and priorities the community put forward. and the scores are in a large majority based on that. so the recommendation that comes to you is based on a panel

saying this matches up with the values the community identified. and if you don't agree with that mix of uses, i think the action to take is to not accept that recommendation, and we'll go run across the kind of use that you're looking for. >> i would argue the better way to do it is bring the qualified people in front of the commission and we pick, actually to really discuss starting from scrap, people and start over is counterproductive to a good process. if we have three qualified people, we are not going to have 51, like we did with the building contest we had. we know we are not going to have those numbers. we have three or four qualified people. i think it is very valuable to look at the use along with the return and pick which one we believe is better. if they are all qualified.

>> i have a question for victor on his statement. >> i think we have to also put some history and context here. so some of us have some history with pier 38. >> so commissioner, are you done? . >> sorry commissioner makras, i wanted to ask a clarifying question to your last statement. so are you suggesting that all folks who meet the minimum qualifications come before the commission or only folks who made the top threescores after the scoring panel? i guess i wanted to clarify what you meant. >> i'm okay with it being a number of qualified people. >> okay. so but after scoring has taken place? >> yes. they would say the top three or top five scorers would come to us. >> okay. i have a similar question along

those lines when it gets to me. >> i believe -- i'm implying to lower the minimum qualifications or eliminate the minimum requirements because the pool of people is not that large. and ideally the evaluations and selecting criteria will take care of the minimum qualifications. let me give you an example. there's a 25-points attributed to experience, organization and reputation of respon can't's respondent's team. if they can rate them zero if they have no experience, and they would really be knocked out. i think the minimum requirement is a tool for someone to object to the overall process for

us and knock out bidders. so i would ask that, when you are saying in the minimum qualifications that they have a commitment funding of a single development project of $40 million do you mean letter of credit from a bank for $40 million? do you mean that the person can have $200 million office building paid for cash? and they say there's my $40 million? it's fine that category -- define that category so i can understand and potentially all the bidders would understand the committed funding of a single development project? >> so i think all the examples you just described would qualify for that. so i would like to take a step back and describe why we step up these minimum qualifications because i think it's important to how we are imagining this project. as you recall we had a request for interest, we had 52

responses from publicly-oriented uses. we were just talking about what are the kinds of things that bring people into the piers. and that brought us to a realization that there are a lot of publicly-oriented uses that need to be paired with revenue-generating uses to have a feasible project. our concern with not having minimum qualifications to show that someone can raise money construct a project of some value and attain of some value is a panel will say we love this public-oriented use so much and this operator has experience in that publicly-oriented use, we are going to score them high even though we don't know if they are going to feasibly produce this project. so pairing someone with that expertise, we could be confident that what comes out of the scoring process will be someone that can deliver a successful project. >> exactly. >> what happens if you have two contractors

that each do a $20 million job? does that total 40? >> no. one specific project that has $40 million in it. because this project, 38 and 40 will be close to $200 million. this is one-fifth of that. it's saying i can raise a lot of money. and we just had to draw the line somewhere. we felt like one-fifth of that was the right line to draw. >> right. >> thank you. that concludes my questions. >> thank you. commissioner. >> hi. thanks, david. i actually now have more questions than i originally did. so i'm sorry to bring you back up to the mic. so i'll start with the minimum qualifications, which i really appreciate because i think on any large-scale development project you need that. sorry. i have a question though. i was surprised that -- where was it? that

having a respondent that has done over water construction with the minimum qualifications. so i'm going down a different rabbit hole. >> i can respond to that one while you decide who is coming up for the next question. so over water construction is definitely a value to the port and a preferred qualifications. however, if we require over water qualifications, we are really limiting the pool. so we are trying to thread the needle of getting minimum qualifications that really reflect what a developer and partners would need to pull off a successful project without unnecessarily limiting bidders from competing and being successful. because there are few developers who have done overwater work here at the port. and they would have -- if we put that in, we would be limiting ourselves to

that pool or having done overwater construction in other areas. so we felt that we didn't want to preclude successful respondents what had done other kinds of projects successfully, had a wonderful project approach, had financial capacity. so that's why it's not in there. >> so how we do other projects, ociu, mayor's office of housing, why would we say the member needs to have that experience. construction group b who is the expert with overwater construction it makes me nervous where someone could be awarded never having done overwater construction. and i spent all the time at the mayor's office for housing when they do housing for special population, the

developer doesn't have to be someone who, withouted with foster youth but they have to have someone on their team who has. >> to get it to the contractor. >> either a contractor or member of the team. >> so a question about whether -- this is a question whether we put it in this stage or we would put it in an eventual lease that we would execute. because here we are saying who is our development partner to pull off the development of the pier. if we are successful we select a good partner then we enter into complex transaction documents to execute the lease and there i think would be the appropriate place to talk about construction and other bells and whistles that we would want to see. but i think we could certainly put that at this stage. but it would be -- we could also wait

and put it in the future stage with our successful partner. >> to me it just seems to be comparable to the other things you put in, which i agree that we need someone who can raise capital and i think the minimum qualifications sort of sometimes will knock folks out of applying or being reviewed. and that's standard. so i just really would like to look back at that if that's a possibility. my other question was about process. unless i'm understanding it wrong, i don't understand why everyone who meets the minimum qualifications, which are all centered around having a good reputation, being willing to negotiate with us, you know, in confidentiality and raising $40 million why all those are coming from the commission. i actually think that sets us up to be the bad guy to the community when there's

someone who maybe meets that who is going to build acres of tennis courts but when they go to get scored and go to the interview they only rank 40. i don't understand why we wouldn't see the top three or five scores. >> okay. the way this process is set up is two-tier. and one is to provide maximum information and transparency to the commission and members of the public. so today we are talking in depth about how this scoring will work and what we are looking for. we want you to see everyone who came in. so you are aware of all the various project concepts. now the community knows who the waterfront land use plan and we all know feasibility is a central issue for this project.. the panel is going to be the hard work of scoring and getting a recommendation to you. but the transparent pieces are you see everyone, you get your five to

ten, we are going to discuss the right amount of time, and the public is aware of everyone that came through. and when staff comes back with the panel recommendation, you can also look under the hood so to speak and understand why the various responses were scored in the way they were so you can get a level of comfort with how the various proposals very evaluated. so the panel will do the hard work of doing the evaluation that you are setting today and making that recommendation. but this process you seeing all of them, is meant to be a transparency measure for the commissioners and the public. >> i just have never seen any other city department do it that way. i've seen them publish the scoring and publish for the community. >> it's true. this is a step that we are taking that's different but going to the commission. and we've done it in past proposals. we did it at pier 70 from

my understanding. we did it at pier 38. i think there's a lot of interest in what we are seeing and who is responding in our -- and a lot of interest in waterfront development. so we are putting in extra transparency steps. so the panel doesn't feel like a black box to anyone. >> i have a request that they all be. >> i guess i wanted to -- i'm happy to sit and listen. i think it will be fascinating and i have my binder of all the responses we kept. so i'm more concerned you know the waterfront for so many people and so many different groups in san francisco is sacred ground. and what i'm concerned about is there's this compelling proposal, and i think there were some in the rfis who to this day have still -- have hopes and dreams of being successful which i'm not sure they are going to be able to raise the capital and

put the team together. and by having them present to us and having a panel scored i'm worried about if we have an appeal process and what that appeal process is. i didn't find it in the staff report. and more concerned about it backfiring from the pr community perspective particularly if we only have one applicant come forward. so i'm very much in agreement with the commissioner makras that i would like to see the top two or three proposals and let the commission guide that decision for who we enter into an nea with because i'm concerned we are going to hear all these proposals and the committee is only going to let a few afterwards. >> i can make some comments and turn it back over to you. so we are hopeful that more information and analysis will help the community and our constituents feel comfortable with the selection. and it's true that there are wonderful ideas out

there that will never financially work. i mean, we are all aware of that. and you can get very attached to wonderful ideas, but the financing just doesn't pencil. in terms of the selection process, we looked at the airport and what they did for the hotel. we consulted with the mayor's office in terms of what they considered to be the best practices of solicitation and selection as it relates to development for city contracts and other awards it's very clear it's a panel vote, highest score gets the award period. in our leasing context, it's more open-ended. but we came down that it's best in terms of fairness transparency, to give that job to the panel. and if you don't feel comfortable with what they recommend then we start again. because we must have missed something in the scoring or missed something. we also will have a diverse panel. we will

have a member who is a community constituent. and we will have expertise on that panel. so we feel that that is the cleanest way to proceed. >> one final question, and then i promise i'm done. so when you bring the finalist forward will we see the scoring sheets and criteria for all applications that were scored? >> yes. you'll see everything. >> and is there an appeal process like there is in other city departments? >> appeal process is always required for contracts. and typically the appeal goes -- it's an administrative appeal. and the contractthecontract administrator and i evaluate that appeal. there's no such requirement for leases. and we looked high and low. so at this point we do not have an appeal process written in. we've discussed it. we can certainly put one in, and we would mirror it after what we do for contracts. >> okay. thank you very much. >> . that concludes my questions.

>> those were lots of questions. i think there's some background to all this on pier 38. many of us know that was a very painful process we went through and it was not successful. and i presume that some of the lessons learned out of that are reflected. and that was also because we were also mindful of the project which put a lot of constraints on how that rfp. but i think that this one thing i think may be with the minimum requirements, that is there any way to not necessarily include a full financial feasibility but could that not be something in terms of their concept of what they plan to do, just not the minimum qualifications but to put something preliminarily in terms of financial feasibility, because i think that i'm not worried we are going to have 25 25 presentations at the port. in our

last experience we ended up with very few bidders. because when people understand the financial feasibility and capital requirements regardless of whether you say $40 million or $10 million or whatever number you put the number is going to go down very rapidly. and we've already understood that in the last round when we went through pier 38. so i don't worry we are going to have too many. i think that we worried last time that we would have too few and we ended up with just two. the process was a little different than what you are proposing. and i'm fine with empowering the panel, because i think we want a fully objective process here and not subjective. and i think that if we can put in the rfp what we really do require after you go through minimum qualifications. but i would say beyond just saying i'm qualified to do this and i can raise some money, i think they should also put in their concept how they see the financial feasibility

so we don't get into some of the come peeing projects -- compelling projects that will never see the light of day because they won't pencil out. that's something we can do in the preliminary phase. i think this rfp is very different from the last one because the last one was only the bulkhead. this one is for the entire pier. and obviously the costs are very different today than what we looked at in 2012. so that's going to also put a different sort of qualifier on here as well. so i just think that -- i think commissioner brandon probably has the most experience in dealing with complex rfps because she's been on the commission the longest and seen what's been successful and not. but in my process, i think the scoring criteria is fine, and i think the waiting is appropriate, and the oral, i think the oral to me is not just being able to articulate well, it's also a

question of developing i guess the intangible factor the trust factor, the factors of how we are going to work with this developer that are intangible that come through in terms of the oral interview that perhaps somebody can talk well but do we trust they are going to do the execution. some of that is developed not on paper but an interview process and that's an intangible that's going to reflect how the panel goes about their job. and i don't know that you can necessarily put that all in writing per se, but that is a very important factor, because we all know how we develop certain chemistry or not develop chemistry with certain players in terms of how we do business. and that is just a fact of life. so that would be my comment so far. and i think commissioner brandon can probably add more of her history of dealing with complex rfps. and not just particularly because of these two piers which we do have

experience with, which have been very painful. we thought pier 38 was going to be developed when it was closed in 2012 by 2014. that never happened. and we are now five years later still starting at the starting gate again. >> thank you. any other comments? questions? thank you so much for this report. i think that each time we have a large development we try -- we sometimes we try the same way sometimes we try a new way because it doesn't always work. i think with this project, we were empowering a panel because we need a lot of expertise to go into whomever submits whatever proposal. i did feel that somewhere between that one recommendation coming to us that we should be able to see the proposal. where we

see it, how it all fits in, where we don't influence or hurt the panel's decision, i'm open. so i mean the panel can do their work and then they come and present to us. but i don't think it's going to be more than two three four max. so i don't think we are talking about a large group. but i did want us to have the opportunity to see who presented because this is a large project. and then -- so if the panel does all their work before the presentations come to us, i'm not quite sure if we should have, you know, the written and oral at 100 percent or if we need that extra 30 percent. because i've seen many contracts where people have done phenomenal in their written but the oral is even better and it knocks them into first

place. so i'm not quite sure the scoring -- i would never -- i've never seen 130 percent. i've always seen 100 percent. i'm just not sure about that. >> the 130 points? >> yeah, the 130 points. >> i wanted to make some comments back based on what you've all said. i think we should revisit the five minutes. i think it's probably too small. i agree with commissioner makras' point and we should rethink that especially if we have three to four respondents. so i don't know what the right figure would be, maybe 15 minutes or ten minutes, something like that. >> open-ended. >> we don't have to specify how long the presentations will be. we can clarify that when the responses come in and make some good strategic decisions about what makes sense. i absolutely think the blackout period

should extend to the panelists. that's a very, good catch. in terms of the timing. the reason we wanted every response that met the minimum qualifications to come through to you so you can see them before the panel comes together and it's like awe a justice justice, you could have that experience, the public could see it and then the panel gets to work. we like that flow because the panel can get to work and come back to you and tell you what i found. so i think that is the preferred timing. yes. >> we have one caveat on that. maybe it's covered in the blackout period. i would not want the panel to hear, because we might have remarks. i don't want them to be influenced by us. >> we decided they wouldn't be influenced by you. so they are not coming to the hearing and we are going to tell them not to listen and pay attention. because we are telling them exactly what to pay attention

to based on your criteria. that's right. >> i think it should be very explicit in a signed agreement that they don't watch the commissioners listen. because that's my concern where that could happen within the community, if there was overwhelming talk that people come out with public comment in support of it and they end up scoring poorly, that was what i was trying to drive at. >> or the papers could pick up. lots of things that could happen. there could be free contests of community members. >> so should we skip the presentation to the commission? >> i think -- i mean i think the scoring should happen first maybe. i'm really concerned about public relations. because we already had projects come to us in

here where you already got past all the stage and we were just giving them the final kind of blessing to move forward. how much public comment do we have with supporters coming out for that? anyone worth their salt is going to organize the community at this presentation to come up for public comment, and i don't want this to be a popularity contest with something that's so important. >> what you could do is they present but no public comment. >> i don't think we can do that, commissioner. [laughter] we've tried but i think with the browne act there's always an opportunity for public comment. so we would have a hard public comment. >> if it was left to me, i would have the panel do their job before then and then bring it forward so we can see it. we give them 15, 20 minutes to present. the real world of this is we are most likely not going to have five

bidders that meet the minimum requirement and put a full proposal. and if we spend one afternoon on a special meeting and listen to three to five proposals and we had the scoring in front of us, everyone sees it, and we pick the best un. >> yeah, but that's where we are -- i mean, that's why i wanted everyone to see who responded, let the panel do their work and come back to us with a recommendation. the staff, legal and everyone is not recommending that we have two or three but we just have one recommendation. >> yeah. >> you said the top two three come back to us right? >> i think the difference is commissioner makras is suggesting the commission is going to make the final choice versus the panel and that's what i think he is suggesting.

>> i heard differently. i guess what i would recommend, because i think the panel should make the decision for us and i understand -- i think it would be -- if everyone who meets the minimum qualifications can come present to us for 15 minutes but it's done after the scoring and the oral interviews are done. so that we hear it, gets presented. and there's no threat of undue influence from the press or public comments. >> so we see it but we don't have the recommendation yet. i'm not sure what the value is of that at that point. >> well, the presentation to the commission has no value to the panel. it's only for the commission to be able to see whom is proposing what. then the panel does their work -- well, either way. the panel

does their work first, and then they present to us and then we get the recommendation. so at least we are aware of why they are recommending whom they are recommending, and we've seen it. so we can either skip seeing everyone and let the panel duoto work and come with their -- go to work and come with their recommendations and we can put a commission review in there somewhere. so those are the two choices. where we review it. if we review it up front, you have the concern, the public comment will affect the panel. if we do it afterwards, you are saying there's no purpose that we see it, that we know why the panel is making the recommendation that they are making. >> well, one of these -- that they influence our ultimate decision on approving the final recommendation. that would be the

gain of seeing them all. >> but that's second-guessing the panel. >> it's just building additional confidence in the panel's recommendation. i mean the panel is your adviser. so we are empowering the panel to give you good advice. ultimately the commission makes the decision to move forward with the highest scorer, and the panel process or to have us start again. so you are ultimately the decision maker and you are empowering a panel with expertise and community representation to do the scoring for you because it's a complicated project. so seeing the various respondents may give you additional confidence in the panel's work. >> i would like to get some clarity on whether we can or we cannot as the city attorney said something about a recommended way. does the commission have the

right to have the top two be brought to us for the final decision? is that an option? or are we precluded by law? >> we are not precluded by law. >> you are not precluded. >> but i don't want it to be persuasion. let's get the direct answer. okay. could we have three come before us if we wanted to? pass or fail. they get a certain score and the top three come to us? >> yes. >> legally, we can have all of them come before us. >> yeah. >> my concern was less about the scoring and sort of -- we will see all the scores of everyone before we make a decision. and we could say we understand that group

a scored the best but we think group b is who we should do business with and we could reject that and work with group b. >> that was not the process we recommended here. under the process we recommended here, if the panel says it's group a and you all say we don't think it's group a we like group b your remedy would be to send us back again, because we are mirroring this after the best practices of the airport and mirroring city contracting rules which says highest score is who you do business with. so here we specifically said it's the highest score that you would either vote up or vote down essentially. >> and the whole rfp process would happen again? >> yes. but we would have to look at why it didn't work the first time. you know, was it did we weight financial too much and not this other criteria or is there something we missed so we could have a transparent

process so everyone could compete again. >> here's what i believe is in our best interest to look at more than the top go-getter. at the end of the day, you are going to have two primary competing businesses. one will tip to money more, and the other may tip to maritime more. i would like us to be able to argue which one we prefer to be the winner. and we have a policy that says if we want more maritime, we have a policy that says the economics don't have to be the same if we have maritime use. so i would like that option to be provided. >> i would argue that that's a priority of maritime versus financial should be built into the guidelines of the rfp. it should be in the up-front guidelines. and i think this rfp in terms of including the values of the community, et cetera, is much more

comprehensive than we've done in the past, because we've taken that in consideration obviously, through the waterfront land use plan and all the discussion we've had with the committee so we are trying to be very balanced with it. but i think the guidelines of where we decide if it's maritime or financial feasibility, i think we've left it open in term it is of the uses so i don't think we've tried to preclude one or the other. but i don't think it has to be argued at the end of the process. it has to be included in the front end and the panel will evaluate if there's nuance or gray area, which there will be, to decide which is the best way for the port to consider. and they should show us the nuance and gray areas but we will look at that. but i don't think we're going to have a big philosophical discussion of maritime versus other but it will be nuances. >> i would hope that. but when i look at the criteria i don't see anything that

ponies to